The Shadow of a Gunman

play by O’Casey

Also known as: “On the Run”

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Article History

The Shadow of a Gunman, drama in two acts by Sean O’Casey, performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1923 and published in 1925. Originally titled “On the Run,” it was the fifth play O’Casey wrote but the first to be produced. The comic-tragic play is set in the tenement slums of Dublin in 1920 amidst guerrilla fighting between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Black and Tans of the British police force.

The plot concerns the poet Donal Davoren, whose neighbours think he is an IRA hero. He shares an apartment with the peddler Seumus Shields. One day Mr. Maguire, another peddler and a real IRA gunman, leaves a briefcase containing explosives with them. When Maguire is shot and the Black and Tans raid the apartment, the pair are saved by Minnie Powell, an admirer of Davoren, who removes the case but is captured. Ironically, she is killed when the IRA ambushes the police vehicle that is transporting her to prison.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.